Death Note, the anime series comprising of 37 episodes and well-famed for its dark theme and profound underpinnings on morality, power, and death, has gained massive popularity in the West over the years. It was due time that the anime featured a film of its own. Death Note hits Netflix on Friday, August 25. The official trailer for the upcoming film was released a few weeks ago. However yesterday, Netflix released a cut-scene from the film where Light (one of the main characters) meets Ryuk.

For those who haven’t watched Death Note, the plot is more or less simple. A bright young man stumbles upon a notebook that allows him to kill anyone simply by writing their full name in the notebook. The notebook is called the Death Note and is owned by a God of Death, Ryuk. With the passage of time, Light realizes Death Note’s true potential and inevitably succumbs to the addiction of power and godly judgment that comes along with using the demonic notebook, murdering a trail of people he judges to be undeserving to live. This trail of deaths is then investigated by “L,” the world’s best detective who tries solving the heart of the matter.

The cut-scene shows Light’s first encounter with Ryuk and how, after a brief exchange of words, Light is intimidated into using the Death Note for the first time. The cast of Death Note is as follows. The main character, Light Yagami is played by Nat Wolff, his girlfriend is played by Margaret Qualley, and Ryuk, the God of Death, is played by Willem Dafoe. On the other hand, the best detective in the world, or as he calls himself in the anime “L,” is played by Keith Stanfield.

Even though the film is expected to follow the same plot as that in the anime, it also features some detractors given certain differences the movie is expected to feature in relation to the anime. One such example is that the movie would feature Light Yagami as a self-conscious and insecure character whereas his Japanese counterpart is rather popular, charismatic, and incredibly intelligent. Critics have been emphasizing this crucial difference, however, the film’s director, Adam Wingard, assures that the step to incorporate minute differences is an attempt to make the message as well as the story line more compatible, relatable, and appealing to the youth of the United States.